let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day

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Summer After Snow

Essentially the same shot, same angle and distance, 24 hours apart, of an Icelandic poppy in a patio pot.

After the snow, everything rebounded remarkably. The pink honeysuckle whose limbs had been bent to the ground stood tall and fleshed out with plenty more blossoms, and was full of bees for weeks. A few iris flowers froze but no one stalk completely died, and they continue to bud and bloom their last few, three weeks later.

The Siberian honeysuckle vine began to open as the pink honeysuckle tree slowed, and bumblebees of all kinds are all over it.

For a week or two the chives were where it’s at.

Columbine blooms madly in various warm shades, attractive to this digger bee and many others.

Western tiger swallowtails are coming to the potted salvias, as well as many other blooms.

It’s interesting to notice how tense my life becomes without reliable water. For a week the switch on the pressure tank has been failing, and the plumber has been swamped with the more urgent task of repairing a broken water main that supplies a whole neighborhood. I could have found someone else, but I just found him, and I like him, and he’s good. So we waited. When the tank drained and the pump didn’t kick on, I went out and jiggled the switch. As each day passed, the switch failed more frequently, until each time the tank drained I had to jiggle the switch.

It’s a good thing I meditate. We cut back our use of water to necessity, and all the garden got thirsty, but the seedlings and transplants remained a priority, as well as drinking water for people and pets, water for face and hand washing, and of course ice cubes, for cocktails. We were never in dire straits. We were in anxious straits. And that anxiety, despite being modulated by daily meditation, strained my equanimity. I felt tight, and less than whole, simply because the water could at any moment quit altogether. And I realized how thoroughly the structure of my day depends on reliable, constant water. How lucky we are!

He came this morning and replaced the switch. I feel I can breathe freely again. And so I am back to spending hours a day moving hoses and sprinklers, hearing that darn pump grind comfortingly at regular intervals. Within two weeks of having a four-inch snow with one-inch water content, we are enjoying 90 degree days and the garden is in full bloom. We are all thirsty all the time. And now, for awhile, we have peace of mind. And showers.

Dave just walked by and I showed him the pictures–so nourishing, those pictures! Despite the excellent snow still in the mountains, the irrigation water now seems inadequate and the fields too thirsty. Dave hustles so to capture every drop. An odd thing, I think, that we plant our humanity in a place where nature often does something so contrary to what would be handy for us–freezes us first, then dries us up, then blows herself around. She likes to keep us on our toes.